


Things Go Their Way

by ultima88



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Boris is an awkward meatball, Claudia changes things and Adam helps her, Dreams, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Origin World, Regina and Boris dream, Regina is the boss, Romance, Time Travel, Visions in dreams, beware: time travel concept is all over the place in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultima88/pseuds/ultima88
Summary: '...“How can I help them meet, Claudia? The man lives in f***ing Switzerland!”“The question is not where, but when” she answers stoically.Adam can swear he sees a twinkle in her eyes, as if she’s waiting for that particular moment to utter those words.“They will meet younger.” Claudia explains.Adam chuckles and shakes his head no. They are on the verge of nonexistence and she wants to play matchmaking?“Sic Mundus is not a matchmaking service, Claudia.” He says exasperated...'****In which Claudia wants to do something for Regina and Adam helps her, but things go their way despite their best efforts.
Relationships: Aleksander Tiedemann | Boris Niewald/Regina Tiedemann
Comments: 43
Kudos: 59





	1. Regina's Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Includes spoilers for All Seasons. Read At Your Own Risk

Regina didn’t sleep well last night.

Maybe she had a little too much of the wine Peter and Benni brought to the dinner party, or maybe doing the dishes was exceptionally hard this time, since the thunderstorm caused a temporary power cut, breaking down her dishwasher.

When she finally put the last dish on the drainer, the thunderstorm was finally starting to lose its power. As she was wiping her hands on the towel, Charlotte's wedding invitation on the kitchen table caught her eye. She made a mental note to respond while she was preparing for bed. She didn't want to admit since she was always inclined to be "the polite host" but she got tired tonight. She tucked herself in bed, pulled the covers to her chin and closed her eyes, expecting a deep sleep.

For a couple of minutes she listened to the sound of light rain, pattering against the windows to ease her fall into sleep but... no success. She had to make a conscious effort to relax her body, by keeping her eyes closed and taking deep slow breaths.

There at the verge of unconsciousness, thoughts started to surface…This night...The thunderstorm…Black out…Hannah’s words at the table… Yeah, _what the hell was that?_

“Infinite darkness” Hannah described her dream: “No wanting, No tomorrow, No today.” Regina has been thinking about those words all night. As she has been falling into her own darkness, she hears a calm voice calling for her:

_“What’s that?” she asks to the empty void as she takes a blind step into one direction. She realizes she is wearing her favorite sweater, from years ago. A pale green one with embroidered pink roses on its front. Then she stares at her smaller then usual hands. She tilts her head to look closer and a strand of fuzzy, curly hair falls in front of her eyes. She tucks her hair back and looks across the darkness._

_“Regina” the voice calls again. When she turns her face towards its direction, she realizes a hand touching her left arm. It is firm but gentle. She can not see who is touching, but the warmness of it radiates all around her body. The voice speaks again: “Everything is okay.”_

_Her heart starts to race as she repeats these words out loud, with a question mark at the end: “Everything’s okay!? Who are you!?” She impatiently waits for an answer as she reaches with her other arm, towards to spot where the hand rests, but the warmness it radiates is already dissolving into air, lifting up small fibres of her sweater with it. Then she feels the rise of electricity all over her body, right before a loud…_

Clap of thunder echoed around, made her jump. She sat up on her bed. She was panting. After she managed to take control of her breath, she put on her robe and went to the kitchen to have a glass of water.

_What the hell was that?_

As she was going back to the bedroom, down the hallway, she catches her own image on the mirror. She stopped to look at herself. Her face. It was sad. She was sad. But why? There was no reason. She _was_ happy. Everything _was_ okay. Tonight, she didn’t even answer her own question at the dinner table, because she didn’t wish anything to change, even the world had ended today. She would prefer everything to stay forever the same. 

Her face puckered up, her lips quivered. She bit her lips. It was a habit she developed as a last ditch effort to hold back her tears. However her trick didn’t work this time and a persistent teardrop let itself fall on her right cheek.

It was all happening too fast. She lost her father, got the full responsibility of the hotel, became the sole caregiver of her mother, all of her friends either got married or in a significant relationship. _People were having kids._ It felt like in one way or another, every body was moving on with their lives except her. But she was happy with her life. She just didn’t want others to move on so fast. 

Then she touched the spot, the hand in her dream rested on. It was as if she wanted to sense the warmness inside her again. _How long has been since she has been touched like this?_ She had her boyfriends, one time she was about to marry but she called it off. Did she love him? Well…Let’s say, she was observant enough to understand that she wasn’t loved that much either.

She shook her head to dismiss these thoughts but they kept coming. She had a great love inside her to give to someone and yet sometimes it felt like all this love is wasted. She wondered what would have happened if she had taken a different path in her life? Would she have encountered that someone in her dream, if she had a different past in which she dared to take a step into the darkness? 

She sighed deeply. For now she was left with the pain of the wasted love she carried with herself all her life. She knew that tomorrow, she will probably feel better. She couldn’t help herself but remember the words that the voice said in her dream. It made her smile a little. She opened her mouth to repeat them out loud in front of the mirror. It was as if another Regina was encouraging her from another world:

“Everything is okay” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They said don't start with a dream sequence but here we are! This chapter is more like a Prologue. The following chapters will have a lighter tone.
> 
> I would like to hear from your comments! Thanks for stopping by and reading my first attempt in fanfiction :)


	2. Claudia Needs Help

“I made a mistake” Claudia appears just in time when Adam is about to put the time apple on the ground.

“She misses him.”

“Was zür Höl— _What!?_ ” Adam asks under his breath, balancing the time apple on his hands. Only minutes ago, this woman, whom he now accepts as the “epitome of a time traveler” with her cornsilk silver hair and one blue, one brown eye, gave him THE solution to a never-ending problem which trapped him and all of Winden for… _who knows for how long_. Adam is on a quest to find his younger self to end this charade once and for all, and yet suddenly he is stopped by Claudia’s sudden arrival.

“Who misses who, Claudia?” He asks irately, not really wanting to hear an answer.

“Her husband. Boris.” She responds indifferently, not looking at him.

“Her husband, Boris.” Adam mutters. He tries to visualize the family tree he made in Sic Mundus’ lair, when he was a young man with less scars on his face, which positions each person in the time knot. A couple of seconds pass and he remembers:

“Boris? You mean Aleksander? Regina’s husband? What’s up with him?”

Claudia lifts her head up and looks at him for the first time since she’s arrived. She seems like she’s pondering about what to say next:

“Oh, he’s fine.” She responds at the end, waving her hands nonchalantly.

“In the original world Tannhaus’ daughter-in-law helped him. He never took a false identity, never got shot, never met Regina, never got married. He currently lives in Switzerland with two cats.” She adds didactically.

Adam, trying to digest the information he’ve just got, decides it’s better to play along with _whatever this is_ to get back to his work sooner.

“How can Regina miss Aleksander? I mean— Boris? They’ve never met.”

Claudia shakes her head and glances up giving a long and weary sigh. “Yes they didn’t. Nevertheless she remembers. She dreams about a past she’s never lived. She misses a boy she’s never met.”

Adam pauses to think. Her response should have left him with more questions than answers and yet, deep down he understands. He gently puts the time apple he holds on a counter next to him, then silently takes off his gloves and turns towards her. 

“What can I do you for?” He asks, making the question a soft but impatient noise under his breath.

“You can help me make them meet.” Claudia responds, in an instant.

“What!?” Adam already regrets his decision to empathize with her. “How can I help them _meet_ Claudia? You’ve said just now, the man lives in _fucking_ Switzerland!”

Claudia looks directly at him in a way that implies what he says bears no importance.

“The question is not where, but when” she answers stoically.

Adam can swear he sees a twinkle in her heterochromic eyes, as if she’s waiting for that particular moment to utter those words. 

“They will meet younger.” Claudia explains.

Adam chuckles and shakes his head no. They are on the verge of nonexistence and she wants to _play matchmaking?_

“Sic Mundus is not a _matchmaking_ _service_ , Claudia.” He says exasperated. “Besides it’s too dangerous. Look what happened with Bartosz.”

“Bartosz became a part of the knot when he met Sijla who doesn’t even exist in the original world.” She shakes her head dissonantly, giving a soft sigh through her nose.

“Do you know how many times they’ve got _so close_ to meet?” She asks rhetorically. “Every time, _every time_ they’ve missed each other solely by minutes if not by _seconds_.” She says impatiently, now standing directly in front of Adam. 

“I tell you. They are a perfect match. They just need a little push.”

Adam has heard these same words -a perfect match- before. It comes from someone whom he cares deeply. Looking at Claudia’s face, he can’t decide if she knows this, and if he should be worried or astonished by her dedication for her daughter’s well-being.

“Why don’t you ask Claudia?” He asks seriously.

“We can’t risk to jeopardize the stability of the original world. There aren’t many people in Winden with heterochromia so she— Claudia will understand that I am her.” She answers, taking a step back and looking at him as if she wants to understand his thoughts. She is calculating something in her head herself.

“Believe me I know her. If she finds out that time travel exists, she’ll do all things necessary to find out more.” She adds.

“What we will do should be more delicate, without intervening much on the other events of the original world.”

Adam realizes that dwelling on doesn’t help either of them. She is always one step far in this time game and actually, he trusts her judgement. Besides, he knows that he’ll feel better knowing that he’s helped at least one _perfect match_ to find each other in another world, after he’s ceased to exist.

“Okay.” He whispers. “I’ll help you.” 

The twinkle in Claudia’s eyes returns.

“Good. Let’s get ready.”

***

“I can’t believe I said yes to this.” Adam grumbles crawling through the cold, coarse ground of Winden caves on his knees and elbows.

“How long until we’ll get there?”

“We’re almost there” Claudia answers leading the way. After a couple of minutes she stops at a crossroad. There’s one way on the right and another on the left.

Adam rests on his elbows, panting heavily. After noticing that Claudia doesn’t move, he tells her to pick one way. Claudia doesn’t answer. Instead she turns her head towards Adam and places her index finger vertically in front of her lips. He stops and frowns.

A little later, a flood of sparkles slowly start to float around them, twisting and turning. The intersection that separates the two roads opens, allowing a third way to let passage. They go through that way, pass through a space that is formed by the same sparkles inside the cave and beamed to…

Winden. As it is.

“Okay. We don’t have much time. Regina will arrive at that bus stop soon.” Claudia says hastily, craning her head to see the bus stop, which is across the road behind where they stand. 

“Here, take these” She pulls out a purse inside her jacket and gives him some Deutsche Mark in banknotes and coins, as well as a bus ticket. 

“As I told you, it’ll be better if you’ll come on foot so that I can catch up with Boris before he closes the shop and before your arrival.”

“Now…” she takes a deep breath closes her eyes. “If this works, I believe that even after Jonas and Martha come here to stop the accident from happening and save this world, Regina and Boris will still be together.” She shakes her head and looks up at Adam. 

“After all you can’t lose hope.” She shrugs.

Adam looks at her smiling. He’s heard these words from her before. First as a teenager, than as an adult. And now that they are both at their older age he feels like one of these protagonists in a movie who takes that “one last job” before starting a peaceful life. 

“Anything else?” He asks quietly.

“Yes. Please keep the collars of your coat UP at _all times_ and don’t make my daughter nervous because of your social awkwardness.” She responds half-jokingly.

Adam turns the collars of his coat upwards with total obedience and smiles at her. He turns on his heel and goes near the bus stop, marching in every step. 

Claudia chuckles as she shouts after him: 

“See you at the shop!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for stopping by and reading Chapter 2! I also thank you all for your lovely comments! See you in Chapter 3 at Boris' shop!


	3. At Boris' Shop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: blood (a character is injured)

Boris Niewald is having another boring day at the small hardware shop just outside Winden stocking the shelves. Herr Stein, the owner, has just gone for an installation job, not taking Boris with him. 

_Again._

Starting this job, Boris had at least hoped to go to small repair jobs, but Herr Stein makes it obvious that he hired him just to pay respect to Herr Tannhaus and his late family. 

“His daughter-in-law obviously saw something in you,” he said to him during one lunch break. “I don’t understand what it is, but poor man has already suffered a lot and it is the least I can do for him.” he then brushed bits of sandwich off his pants. 

The least all right. _The bare minimum_. He now stocks the shelves a little more peevishly. 

He is constantly working overtime, dusting off, re-stocking the shelves and changing price tags but he barely affords to eat. His neighbor Aleksander makes fun of him every time he sees him, saying that if he won’t find some money soon, he can always volunteer as a skeleton for the medical school. 

He sighs. He drops the remaining goods on the counter and heads towards the workshop. 

One good thing about this job is that whenever Herr Stein is outside, Boris can build his own things at the workshop. The workshop is a two-storey room with an overhead skylight. It is adjacent to the front side with a swing door. 

As he pushes this door to go inside, he hears the tinkling of the shop's door bell. Frustratedly, he turns over to tend the customer but he is surprised to see that the person who’ve just entered doesn’t fit the profile of their general customers. 

This is an old lady with her long grey hair spilling behind her. She looks _peculiar_. 

“Can I help you?” Boris asks without letting go of his hand from the workshop’s door. 

“I’m sorry,” old lady answers. “I’m supposed to meet with my husband over there” - she’s pointing out towards the phone booth far across the shop- “I think he’ll be late and...” -now she’s looking up to winter sky- “I got cold, the other shops are already closed or about to, can I wait inside?” 

It takes Boris more than a few seconds to understand what he’s just heard. Then, as if he’s freed from a spell he shakes his head: 

“Yes... Yes of course come in,” he responds, letting go of his hand from the door, allowing it to give a smooth swing. He goes behind the counter and shows her the wood bench across him. 

“Thank you” she says but instead of settling into a seat, she turns around, studies pendant lights on the ceiling and wall-to-wall shelves full of electrical devices and whatnots. Boris follows her movements with his eyes. 

_Never remember seeing her around._

Then again his whole life is between work and home and occasionally going to the arcade with Aleksander. 

"So you always work overtime?” she asks. 

“Sometimes,” he sighs and looks around. 

“Are you happy working here?” 

He is a little taken aback by the question. He wants to answer: _What? Do you have a better offer?_ but he holds himself. instead he responds: 

“It’s okay”

“Too bad,” she says. “I might have a better offer.” 

“Really!?” Boris tries to ignore the shivers down his back and clutches at the counter to remain upright. 

"Not now,” she answers as if trying to hold a smile. “But maybe soon. How can I reach you?” 

Boris can not believe his luck. He opens the drawers of the cabinet behind him, scrambling for a business card. When he finds one, he hands it to her, leaning over the counter. 

“Max Stein,” she reads. “Is that you?” 

“No I’m Boris. Boris Niewald. I’m almost always here. You can reach me from the number written there.” He explains rapidly, standing still and almost only moving his lips. 

“Nice to meet you Boris,” Claudia nods to him. “I’m Cla—”

_Oh shit. They haven’t talked about the names! Is she still Claudia?_

For her luck, the telephone rings. Boris picks up the receiver. Herr Stein is calling to inform Boris that he will return home immediately after but he should not close the shop before he finishes stocking the shelves. 

_Oh yeah alright, as if I have nothing else to do. What’s he thinking? That I’m his slave!?_

After he closes the telephone, he keeps his gaze on it for a while to calm down and remember the conversation before the call. He then turns and asks the old lady: 

“Do you need to call someone? Your home or the police station?”

****

“Do you need to go to the police station?” Regina asks the man walking next to her. “My grandfather works at the police station. He is great at finding people.” 

“I hope that won’t be necessary” the old man answers. “Are you sure you don’t need help with that?” he asks politely, looking at the huge plywood panel Regina carries with both her hands, concerned with the quiver of the copper coils and aluminum foils on top of the plywood. To the untrained eye that would be not much more than an eyesore, but not to him.

“Oh no, Thank you though.”

Regina’s face turns red just thinking about how nobody helped this polite man who lost his way because of _his looks_. 

Luckily, she is accustomed to seeing human faces and bodies under many conditions and illnesses. After all, her mother’s medical journals and slides spread all across their house. 

“I see you’ve made a Tesla Coil there,” the old man nods at the plywood panel. 

Regina is impressed by his knowledge. He should be around the age of his grandfather and yet when she handed out the list of materials she needed for her project, he thought she’s making a new dog kernel for Gretchen. 

“Yes, I built this for my school’s science fair, next week,” she beams proudly. “Today I showed it to my physics teacher for last minute remarks and as soon as I go home, I will make these wobbly parts secured properly.” 

She also wonders how long they will walk until he _remembers_ something.

As if he reads her mind, he stops suddenly and looks back at a phone booth they’ve just passed. 

_Was it this phone booth, or the one before that?_

Oh no! He really can not remember the place! 

Taking out Claudia’s sketch of the location will be so awkward but he has no other choice. He reaches to his coat’s inner pocket and pulls out a piece of paper as Regina’s bewildered gaze lifts on him. 

“You had a note? Oh... I can not hold it, but if you can bring it a little closer, I can read it.” 

Adam struggles to read the note by himself. He is an old man and has difficulty with reading things up close. Back in Sic Mundus he had his eyeglasses but... 

Regina watches as the old man shifts the position of the note, pulls it away from his face and squints his eyes. 

“This is the place!” he exclaims victoriously and turns around himself until he sees the lights coming from a store across the road. He extends his arm and points at its direction. 

“We’re here! Let’s go!” 

**** 

Boris is calculating the amount of bolts and nails for the next order under the counter when he hears the tinkling of the door bell. He lifts his head up to see the bottom of a plywood board hitting the counter with a gentle thud. At the other end of the plywood, there is a face of a young girl with her curly hair cascading down her cheeks. She glances around the shop with large emerald eyes. 

He can feel his ears going pink. He clumsily lets his dark hair fall in front of his face to hide them. He is accustomed to welcome customers with a forced smile but this time he feels like his face is awkwardly slipping into a pink-cheeked grin.

Then he sees the old man who shows up with her. 

“Ahh!” he squeals and his naturally heavy-lidded eyes opens up widely. He can’t help but look at the disfigured face and the hairless skull of the old man beset by scars. 

When he opens his mouth to welcome them, the sound comes creaky because his mouth’s gotten dry. 

“At last!” the old lady interrupts his hypnotized state. She turns towards the counter at Boris, while extending her arm to the old man. “Boris, this is my husband.”

_No name. No name is good._

Boris nods stiffly then switches his gaze to meet the dissenting eyes of the young lady. 

Regina indeed, is not amused by the reaction of this boy whose eyebrows are distractingly arched and whose face is uncomfortably sculpted. She feels gradually warming up but assumes it is a natural reaction of her body, adapting to room temperature after spending a lot of time in cold weather. 

“I thought we’d meet at the bus stop,” the old man says to his wife. “I was expecting you there and if this young lady hadn’t helped, who knows how long I’d have waited,” he adds, reaching out his hand towards Regina. 

“Regina, this is my wife Cl—” 

“Clara!” Claudia suddenly puts in as she gives Adam a frown of disapproval. “Nice to meet you,” she greets Regina without having eye contact. 

Claudia feels they should talk about something until she finds an excuse to leave these two together. 

“Look at this!” she exclaims at Regina’s project trying not be seen suspicious. “A curious thing. What’s this exactly?”

As if she doesn’t know already.

“A Tesla Coil” Regina and Boris answer at the same time. 

They look at each other and after a suggestive second of silence both of them give a small chuckle. 

_He’s cute_ , Regina realizes. With dimples just above the curl of his lips and a slightly chipped tooth in his gentle smile.

Yeah, he’s definitely cute. 

She is practically disengaged from the rest of the conversation until Boris turns his attention to her and asks what type of capacitor she used. 

Their conversation satisfies Claudia enough to nudge Adam and give him an eye to cut their visit short. Taking the cue, Adam nods at the two teenagers and thanks them for their help. As they are heading towards the exit, unknowingly, Adam’s coat catches the corner of the plywood base. Without even giving them an opportunity to react, the plywood tips over and falls on the concrete ground with a big smash, scattering all wobbly and non-wobbly parts around the store. 

At first, Regina doesn’t understand what happens. Then, she widens her eyes with terror and opens her mouth to make a sound that is both a squeak and a grunt. 

“Hast du sie verdamm—” 

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Boris interrupts Regina’s ranting and lifts his head up just like turtles towards these two old trouble makers. He moves to the front side of the counter and gently directs the old couple to make them exit the shop. 

Adam murmurs a sincere sorry as the shop’s door slowly closes on their back. Before it completely closes Claudia manages to see Boris crouches next to Regina on the floor. She turns to Adam and says: 

“ _Did you plan this?!_ Because if you did it was cruel,” she than abruptly stops in the middle of the empty road. 

“Cruel but brilliant.” 

“I..I..I really didn’t,” Adam stutters as he looks down the opposite sidewalk. 

“You think it worked?” 

Claudia shrugs, realizes she isn’t entirely sure on the success of her plan and says “Let’s check on that.” 

They duck behind the trees across the road and move their heads just enough to see the shop window. 

Inside the shop, Boris moves to sit beside Regina with his back on the counter. He sees her pointed chin trembling and her lips quivering. She bites her lips as the tears are filling the brim of her eyes. She averts her face and lets her curly hair to fall over, covering the tears. 

Boris lowers his head to catch a glimpse of her eyes.

“Hey,” he says softly, “Regina isn’t it?” he swallows, “Everything’s okay.” 

“No it isn’t!” Regina snaps. “My project is ruined and I don’t have time to fix it until next week!” 

She turns her head towards him and _maybe this isn’t the time but,_ she realizes how close they sit. Their shoulders almost touching. 

Concurrently, he realizes how beautiful she is with her wide emerald eyes and her delicate chin and her nose now a little pinkish on its tip. 

“I can help you fix it.” He requests. “There’s a workshop at the back and I’m sure we can find all materials you need.” 

Regina blinks at him. She tries to figure out how to respond: Rebel against him and rant or listen to him and accept his offer. 

She takes a deep breath. Eventually she asks: “Where’s this workshop exactly?” 

Boris smiles just enough for his dimples to appear. He nods towards the swing door on their right. 

“Ther—” 

As both of them rotate their heads right, they see a boy appear in front of the workshop door. He looks as much as shocked to see other people inside the shop as they are. 

“Aleksander?” Boris asks in disbelief. “What are you doing here?” he stands up in front of him in an instant.

“I...I..” stutters Aleksander, he is a little taller and a little well fed than Boris. “I thought the shop would be closed.” 

After the first shock, Regina sits up and watches both of them by turning her head back and forth, trying to understand the situation. 

“How did you come in here?” Boris asks again. 

“Through the skylight...” Aleksander is looking for something in his pockets. “Look... I haven’t come this far to go back...so...”  
  
He pulls a knife under his coat and points at him.

“I will appreciate if you give me all of the money.”

**** 

“ _Did you plan this?!_ ” Adam asks Claudia in full terror.

“No!” Claudia shrieks. She takes a step forward, with the intent of interfering but Adam grabs her arm before she manages to take another step.

“Remember,” he says, holding out her arm. “We can’t risk to jeopardize the events of the original world.”

“All right!” she growls. “But at least let me call the police to report a robbery. It is a civic duty!” she lets her arm free of his grip and storms into the phone booth, as she checks her pockets.

“Didn’t you know there will be a robbery?” Adam asks stumbling to keep up with her. 

“There was a robbery in Boris’ shop when he was absent but not today,” she answers, her tone a little hysterical, “His boss would blame him, and this event would eventually cause his departure for Switzerland.” She finds her purse and empties all of the items inside it: banknotes, coins, cards, tickets, a wig

 _A wig?!_ Adam surprises. “Why do you need a wig for?”

“It wasn’t for me!” Claudia scrambles for the shop’s business card and a token for the telephone. When she finds them she rushes to the phone booth and picks the receiver, “It was for you!” 

“For me?!” Adam fumes at Claudia.

“I don’t have time for this,” Claudia hisses and dials a number. “Don’t lose the sight of that shop window.” 

Adam sneers at her but inevitably turns his face towards the shop.

****

Inside the shop Aleksander aims his knife directly at Boris while blocking the exit. 

“Come on! Hurry!” Aleksander hisses at Boris. Boris’ solemn expression while emptying the cash register makes Regina furious at Aleksander.

“You know some thousand Marks are not worth jail time,” she takes a step towards him. 

“Shut up!” Aleksander snarls at Regina and in no time knocks her down the ground with the back of his hand.

Boris’ expression quickly goes from solemn to rage. Intense rage.

“If you touch her again, I’ll kill you!” he shouts at Aleksander.

Aleksander laughs at them frantically and this makes Boris even more angry.

In one swift motion he leaps over the counter and lands on top of Aleksander. They wrestle on the ground and Regina can see the florescent lights gleaming on the blade. She crawls on her knees, away from the scuffle and positions herself at a distance from the brawl.

Boris pauses suddenly as he groans and reaches to his right shoulder and winces in utter pain. Aleksander taking advantage of this situation, stands on his knees, claps his fingers around the handle of his knife. He raises his arm high to throw a deadly stri—

Regina smashes the plywood to Aleksander’s head in a loud thump. The strike leaves him unconscious and he hits the ground, out cold.

Regina can not believe what she did. She tries hard to control her heavy panting but Boris looks at her in a way that doesn’t make her breathing any easier. She immediately falls on her knees, next to him, looking at his right side which is slightly turning red.

“You’re bleeding!” she exclaims.

“It’s not too bad.” he stifles. 

“We need to call an ambulance.”

Boris nods yes at her, “We need to tie his hands before he regains consciousness” he says and she can feel the sway of her curls as he speaks.

After Regina calls the police and an ambulance -to her surprise are already on their way- and ties Aleksander’s wrist with a plastic cable tie that Boris shows where to find, she sits next to Boris, her legs laying flat on the ground, their shoulders almost touching.

Boris, now positioned in a more comfortable way -his back at the counter his legs laying flat- breathes slowly through his mouth, his lips pale.

He glanced at Regina who sits silently next to him, almost rhyming her own breaths with his. The plywood panel laying besides the intruder catches his eye.

“I’m sorry for your project,” he says in a rough voice and Regina’s heart skips a beat. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Regina says jokingly. “It was already ruined anyway.” 

Then, maybe as a discharge of the stress their bodies were subjected to, or as a sign of a connection deeper than that, they both dissolve into laughter. A loud, happy, tears in their eyes laughter. 

They didn’t notice the arrival of the police officers.

“Hey! Love birds!” Aleksander regains his consciousness, and calls them laying facedown on the concrete ground. “The police are here!”

Officer Wöhler enters the shop and immediately recognizes Officer Tiedemann’s granddaughter Regina.

“Regina, what happened here? Are you okay?” he asks.

Regina without lifting her gaze from Boris responds:

“Everything is okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They met at last! It was such a ride but we haven't quite finished yet. In the following chapter I want to explore their future selves and there might be other surprises as well. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and your comments are always welcomed!


	4. Parallel Endings (Beginnings?)

Regina opens her eyes to the sight of her bedroom ceiling after a long night, feeling a little disoriented. She sits up and rubs her eyes. 

_Were there people in the house last night?_ She thinks out loud.

She listens to the sound of silence for a couple of seconds. The thunderstorm is certainly over and a ray of sunshine beams through the window and falls onto her bed. She hears a muffled voice speaking next to her.

“There certainly were.”

Regina turns her head towards the direction of the voice as a stinging pain starts pulsing in her temples. It reminds her of the last night when they celebrated her latest achievement… and that she is having a little hangover.

“I thought it was a dream,” Regina responds to the voice while rubbing her temples. _“I saw a dream last night,”_ she says in a way that signals her desire for undivided attention from now on.

Boris sits up next to her and puts his head on her left shoulder “I’m listening,” he mumbles, his eyes still closed.

“It was so strange, I was watching myself, _my younger self_ from afar, as she was searching for a voice that calls her name and tells her that everything is okay.”

“Hmm,” Boris murmurs and opens his eyes to suggest that she’s got his attention.

“This made her angry for some reason and then I saw myself, _my adult self,_ looking at me crying. I told her that everything is okay and then, she smiled back at me,” she says without giving away any emotion in her voice, and then turns her head towards Boris kissing him on his head.

“I think it was you who I was searching for,” she says looking at a distant point on the ground with a sad expression.

“A voice that tells you _everything’s okay_ that makes you snap?” He murmurs to her hair. “Yeah it’s definitely me whom you were searching for,” he then lifts his head from Regina’s shoulder and tucks a strand of her red-brown hair behind her ear, looking at her affectionately.

“Well, I’m glad that I’m in your bed rather than being stranded in your dream” he whispers, kissing her shoulder and moving slowly up to her neck but Regina stops him before he manages to reach her naked skin.

“You can joke all you want but it was terrible,” she says seriously. “I mean, did you ever think about where we would have been if we’d never met? After that dream, I think I would have been very sad,” she pouts.

“Oh come on, you would be fine,” Boris rejects her assumption. “It would be _me_ who would have been in a dire situation,” he continues as he stretches his arms in front of him and wraps them around his shoulders as if he consoles himself.

“I’m pretty sure that if I never met you, I would have secluded myself in one corner of the world and my only friends would be my cats,” he speculates throwing a playful glance at Regina.

 _“Cats?”_ Regina says incredulously. “You don’t like cats a bit.” 

“In another world, I might even love them, who knows?” Boris answers and he bumps his shoulder to hers mockingly.

Regina bumps her shoulder back to him a little more enthusiastically. Boris grimaces in full pretense as he reaches for his right shoulder. 

“This is my _bad shoulder_ you know?” he whines as he acts hurt by a fake pain. “I hurt it when I was saving you from a bad guy,” he beams at her.

Regina opens her mouth in amused disbelief. “It was _me_ who saved you from a bad guy, and if you need proof, it is hanging besides our dinner table.”

“I know, I know,” Boris chuckles as he leans in to place a kiss on his wife’s lips to declare a final truce.

“Mom! Dad! Breakfast is ready!” Bartosz’s voice calls them from the kitchen and they reluctantly postpone the discussions of their peace agreement for another time.

After they complete their morning routines, they move to the kitchen to find Bartosz with his hip braced against the counter, holding a spray bottle in one hand, wiping the doors of the upper cabinets with the other. The table is already prepared and the coffee is brewing on the stove.

“How can you possibly find a way to splatter champagne all over the cabinets I can not understand,” he says under his breath. “I have been cleaning the kitchen for hours, and thanks for leaving the unwashed dishes by the way,” he throws a scornful glance at his parents.

“Oh, Bartosz you’re such a nerd,” Regina teases him as she and Boris sit down for breakfast.

“I don’t think you know what that means mom,” Bartosz responds as he settles into his seat. “Besides, look who’s talking about being a nerd, you’re keeping your high school science project in a glass jar by our dinner table!” He stretches his arm out towards the wall behind them to a Tesla Coil carefully positioned on a plywood base. At its corner his mother’s name is written on a separate label with careful typography. Under hers, his father's name is scribbled with a ballpoint pen.

“It’s a showcase Bartosz not a jar,” Boris responds as he pours coffee for Regina, “And it’s our first project together with your mom.” 

“But don’t worry, _you_ _are_ _our best project to this date_ ,” Regina grins at Bartosz mischievously and Boris gives an amused laugh at his wife’s provocation.

They manage to irritate Bartosz enough to make him get up and head to the door. 

“I don’t have time for this. I need to go to work, and I believe you too. I can not be the adult of this trio all the time you know,” Bartosz grumbles as he puts on his shoes and a little later, he is out.

“This kid is such a Claudia,” Regina complains behind him and blows at her hot coffee.

“I think, both you and Bartosz got the best of her,” Boris responds, lifting the corners of his mouth up a little.

“I don’t know if she has any besides nagging if you count that as a virtue,” Regina says as she reaches for a piece of toast.

“You don’t? To begin with, you are all too determined to a degree that it becomes stubbornness. But thanks to that, you manage to solve great problems,” he looks at her in full admiration. “I mean...look at what we celebrated yesterday. If your mother’s cancer studies weren’t there, and if you wouldn't have studied day and night, you wouldn't be able to develop a microchip that detects early cancer cells.” 

Regina’s eyes shine at her husband. He always knows what to say to elevate her spirits and it was very sweet of him to give all the credit to her, even though he also stayed in all those sleepless nights researching and brainstorming with her. He has supported her through thick and thin, pretty much from the moment they have first met. 

She extends her arm to catch his hand across the table, her fingers gently stroke on top of his hand.

“Do you want to take a day off?” She suggests.

“If only my boss would allow me,” he answers smiling at her.

“I think if you take your boss with you wherever you go,” Regina arches her eyebrow suggestively, “She would.”

Boris gets up from his seat to come to Regina’s side.

“I couldn’t have thought otherwise,” he says and holds out his hand for her to take it. They walk hand in hand down the hallway until they reach their bedroom door. Boris then pulls Regina towards him and kisses her lips invitingly but Regina pulls away from the kiss and purses her lips as if she tastes something.

“Are you sure to grow that beard?” She asks as she draws a line along his jaw with her index finger.

“What?” he asks puzzled. “I thought you’d like it.” 

Regina throws a naughty glance at him as she pushes him softly inside the bedroom.

“Maybe in a different world,” she says as she closes the door behind them.

******

In another world, Boris was standing in front of a door as he was checking his emails: one from an old faculty member that wishes him the best in his future endeavors, one from his future dean, another from the contractor about his house’s latest condition and lastly, an email from the animal clinic informing about his cats’ travel documents.

The door opened and a gleeful head poked out to see its visitor.

“I couldn’t believe you were calling to come here,” she stretched her arms to give him a friendly hug. “It is so good to see you.”

“Thank you. You too,” he smiled at Charlotte. 

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself but you look really radiant,” Boris said.

“Thank you. I guess it’s partly because organizing the wedding made me lose a little weight but I’m also really happy to see you, that might have something to do with it,” she responded as she was moving away from the threshold to let him come inside.

Charlotte Tannhaus was living in a modest two-story home with her mom Sonja. Sonja Tannhaus had spent most of her working life as a social worker helping disadvantaged kids who were coming from unstable environments. Boris was one of those kids, he went to school thanks to her and landed on a job around Winden until an unexpected event caused him to distance himself from the town and from any unnecessary human interaction. He moved to Switzerland where he found solace in his books, projects and tending to his two cats: Tesla and Edison.

Sonja greeted him with open arms and all three of them sat down to catch up on their lives.

“I see you grew a beard since I’ve last seen you,” Sonja called him out.

“Yeah, if you become an academic the beard pretty much grows itself,” he said as he was stroking his cheek up and down with the back of his fingers.

Sonja chuckled and threw him a quizzical look. 

“What brought you back to Winden?” She asked directly.

Boris didn’t know how to answer this. As an academician at least. He’d been a man of science for most of his life but now, he didn’t know the right way to explain himself without looking superstitious. In absolute truth, he rationalized his return on a dream he saw eight months ago that shook him to the core.

In his dream, he was in the small hardware shop where he used to work as a young man in Winden, but he was his older self. He saw the perpetrator of the robbery which eventually caused him to leave the country. He fought him to the ground but got stabbed in the heart. Then, out of nowhere, an angel with a red halo appeared, kissed his heart, cured him and called him here.

“There was a position in the university that I was very interested in,” he couldn’t find strength in him to come up with the honest answer. “I have spent most of my childhood around here and I can see myself doing that for the rest of my life as well.”

Sonja and Charlotte nodded their heads in unison. 

“Well...Do you have any plans to share the rest of your life with a special someone?” Sonja asked almost nonchalantly.

“Mom!” Charlotte disapproved. “Do you want to send him back to Switzerland right away?”

Boris chuckled at this mother-daughter quarrel. 

“Well, I’m sure I didn’t make a secret vow for celibacy when I became an academician,” he responded jokingly. “If that someone feels right, then yes, I might have plans.” Especially if that someone makes him feel like the red angel in his dream. 

“Great,” Sonja said and turned her head to Charlotte. “Charlotte, do you know if Regina will come to the wedding alone?”

“Mom! We talked about this!” Charlotte gasped in utter disbelief as she opened her eyes widely.

Sonja, ignoring her daughter, turned her back at her and leaned over the armrest towards Boris.

“I bet you’d like her very much,” Sonja said with a wide grin on her face. “She runs Waldhotel Winden. You are staying there until you move out to your house, aren’t you?”

Boris nodded no. “I checked online, but there weren't any available rooms,” he said.

“Nonsense!” she objected in a sharp tone. “I bet if Charlotte calls her, Regina can arrange something for you,” Sonja turned her head towards Charlotte who had been giving her fake coughs to change the subject.

“I’m not sure how she can arrange a room for him when it says it’s fully booked,” Charlotte objected. “Besides, how can you be sure that they’ll like each other when none of them know what the other one looks like,” she continued.

Sonja shrugged her shoulders. “Then show him a picture of her, what’s the big deal?”

Charlotte, partly because she wanted to finish this nonsense up quickly and partly because she realized that Boris wasn’t strongly objecting the idea, took her phone out to check for Regina’s social media. She didn’t have any. But she remembered that they had a group picture from her bachelorette party in which everyone put a veil on their head. The photo was taken in a dark place but Regina's features and her red hair were clear in sight.

“Here,” Charlotte said as she zoomed in Regina’s face and gave her phone to Boris.

Boris almost dropped the phone when he saw the photo. 

_Red Angel,_ he gasped internally. _Can it be really her?_ He shook his head slightly, in an attempt to gather his thoughts. _Her green eyes, her graceful chin, her beauty marks and red-brown hair spilling around her shoulders._ He raised his empty hand to touch his temple as he opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out other than a confused sigh.

His expressions were giving away necessary information for Sonja to go on with her mission while Charlotte also got amused to see him in such an observable excitement.

“I told you he’d like her,” Sonja said to Charlotte as she was blinking back at her mom gleefully. Then she heard her telephone rang.

Boris widely opened his eyes as he was staring at the caller ID. “It’s Regina…” he muttered as he was giving back the telephone. He noticed how her name sounded in his mouth. _Regina._

“Halo Regina,” Charlotte answered the phone. “Wie geht es dir?”

“Es geht” Regina sighed on the other side of the line as she threw a sad glance at her broken dishwasher. She told Charlotte about how last night’s power cut caused her dishwasher to break down and how she had a tense talk with the repair service just now that gave her no schedule or no solution for her very broken machine. 

“Do you happen to know any repairman that will cost me less than my life savings?” Regina asked Charlotte jokingly before she would pass the subject to the main reason she called her.

Charlotte threw a disbelieving look at Boris, who was having a living room tour with her mother at this point. Charlotte smiled at herself and started to warm up to the idea of pairing these two. 

“I might know the perfect person for you,” she said in a heartbeat. Then, she collected her thoughts and asked if that was the reason she was calling her.

“No,” Regina says swiftly. “I’m calling to inform you that I’m not bringing anyone to the wedding reception, just my mom.”

“Great!” Charlotte exclaimed and this made Sonja and Boris to turn around and look at her. She gave a thumbs up to them and continued talking with Regina.

“I mean…” Charlotte knew at this point that she had to trust her gut’s instinct and better clear the way for them to meet.

“Regina, I know it will sound crazy but…” she lowers her voice to a whisper, as Sonja and Boris were leaving the room for a house tour “...I’ve got a friend who's just moved to Winden and he’s really great,” Charlotte could almost hear Regina’s wincing.

“Please don’t feel weird because I have a feeling that you might actually hit it off over some afternoon delights* _pun intended_ ” she said and waited for her reaction nervously. To her relief, she heard Regina’s small giggle at the other end of the receiver. 

“Look, my mom knows him since he was a little boy, he’s a really good guy. He will give undergrad courses at the electrical engineering department next semester and believe me he’s really good-looking too. A perfect match for you and your dishwasher,” Charlotte finished her elevator pitch as they chuckled together with Regina.

“I don’t know what to say,” Regina told Charlotte as she was feeling a little warm.

“Don’t do anything for anyone, just listen to your own heart” Charlotte responded. “Look, I can send a photo of him and you can decide if it is okay for him to come over. If you want, you can look at this thing from the funny side: an electrical engineer with a PhD is coming to check your old dishwasher,” Charlotte laughed at her joke. “If you aren’t interested, send me a message that says your rooms are fully booked.” She was amusing herself with metaphors at this stage.

“Okay,” Regina said lightheartedly and they hung up.

Charlotte searched for Boris’ name in the search engine because she had already known that he doesn’t use social media just like Regina. His old university’s web page came up first and it included his whole resume as well as a black and white head shot of him, looking smart and attractive.

Charlotte decided on the whole page, even though she knew sending a resume is a little far-fetched. She attached “His eyes are blue” as a small text and sent the message as her mom and Boris returned from their tours.

“So?” Sonja wondered. 

“Her dishwasher is broken,” Charlotte said trying to hide her excitement. Then she turned to Boris to ask if he knows anything about dishwashers, not really expecting a serious answer.

“I mean it depends on the model but I know that they’re working on the basic principles of machinery and they have a motor, power supply, pumps and switches,” Boris answered as if he is in a job interview.

“Good,” Charlotte nodded, looking at his harried appearance. He’s probably having a minor panic attack and didn’t have time to pay attention to her stupid jokes. A little later her phone made a ring for a new text she received. Charlotte opened the text enthusiastically and read its content:

_I think I can arrange a room for him ;)_

Her cheeks widened in a smile and she made a little jump on where she stood. She lifted her head from her phone to come eye to eye with Sonja and Boris who were looking at her in confusion.

“Okay,” Charlotte let out a big breath. “Do you want to meet Regina _right now?”_ She asked.

_“Right now!?”_

“She lives a little far from here but you came by car didn’t you? She needs help with her ‘dishwasher’.” She giggled.

“I mean...I might lack some of the practical knowledge on dishwashers since new features develop everyday, there are these microprocessor controlled, sensor assis—”

“Boris,” Sonja interrupted his ramblings. “She invites you to her house, stop dragging your feet.” 

Boris gave them a shy sort of grin as he nodded. Sonja and Charlotte saw him out the door with encouraging words and wishes. As mother and daughter were returning back to the living room, Sonja abruptly stopped.

“We forgot to give him a toolbox!”

“Toolbox?” Charlotte tilted her head and looked at Sonja with a blank gaze. “Why does he need a toolbox? You really don’t think he will repair the machine, do you?”

Sonja shook her head and gave a nervous chuckle which made Charlotte laugh.

“You’re this close to write a plot for a softcore erotica, you know that mom,” She said and extended one arm to hug her.

******

When the doorbell rang, Regina had already prepared the house to give it an inviting yet classy mood. She checked herself immediately on the mirror and opened the door to find Boris looking pleasingly charming and helpless at the same time with his twinkly eyes and his ruffled hair blown by the afternoon breeze.

“Hello”

“Hello my Regina. I mean Regina— I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry” He stumbles over his words in the most nervous and charming way as he blushed in bright pink.

“That’s fine…” Regina laughed at his awkwardness and she was a little charmed by the way he carries himself. She called him inside and walked towards the kitchen as she was looking over her shoulder at him.

They stopped in front of the dishwasher and looked down at it. Boris pressed some of the buttons on the front panel and then mumbled something like:

“It’s certainly broken.”

And they both dissolved into laughter.

A little later they sat down on the kitchen table drinking coffee. Boris told Regina that he used to hang out in the same arcade Regina were going to when she was younger and they both dwelled on their thoughts on what might have happened, if they had met back then.

“So...Niewald**,” Regina said smiling and as if she was checking how his name sounded in her mouth. “That means you were never in the woods?”

“Actually it means New Woods. And I’m new in the woods, hoping for someone to show my place in this town.”

“Oh I can arrange that,” Regina said smilingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Afternoon Delight: It sounds like a sweet treat but it also refers to a song with the same name that contains an innuendo about daytime sex. 
> 
> **Niewald: In German the word "nie" means never and "wald" means forest. But Nie is also an older form of neu/nieuw/ny which means new and it’s common in names for locations in The Netherlands. (Taken from Dark Netflix Reddit)
> 
> \----
> 
> Thank you all for following this story and especially those who commented from the start.
> 
> If you've had any general questions / suggestions about this work or possible future works, your comments are always welcomed :)


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